


Don't Let Me Drown

by DesertRaven



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: 5.3 spoilers, Alcohol, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Female Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Gen, I just have a lot of feelings okay, No Beta, PTSD adjacent feelings, Spoilers, Timelines are hard, Unnamed Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:20:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26915023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesertRaven/pseuds/DesertRaven
Summary: What doesn't destroy you, leaves you broken insteadGot a hole in my soul growing deeper and deeperAnd I can't take one more moment of this silenceThe loneliness is haunting meAnd the weight of the world's getting harder to hold upA conversation between a struggling Warrior of Light and Gaius Baelsar
Comments: 4
Kudos: 12





	Don't Let Me Drown

**Author's Note:**

> My timelines are a little messy here because I did content out of order, but that's okay.  
> Story is set post 5.3 (beware of spoilers) but pre Ruby Weapon.
> 
> Please heed the CWs: PTSD adjacent feelings, Alcoholism/Alcohol Abuse

The main room of the Rising Stones is boisterous per usual. Too many people, too much noise. The warrior of light has not appreciated either one in some time. As she has for the many nights since her return to the Source, she sits alone in the inner room with a bottle of cheap liquor for company. In the early days, some of the others would still try to join her, trying to bring her back from whatever bottomless pit she had fallen into. These days, someone only occasionally looks in on her to be sure she hasn’t passed out on the table.

Her eyes, left white by the light that almost destroyed her, stare into the middle distance as she tries, again and again, to figure out where things went so wrong. She had started her journey as a healer, she wanted to help people, and she had been good at it. But it hadn’t been enough, and so she had turned to weapons, dealing out damage and death rather than succor.

Noise spills into the quiet as the door between the rooms opens and the Warrior glances up sharply. Tataru comes down the stairs and through the archway first.

“Ah! I didn’t realize you were still here!”

She fights the urge to roll her eyes at the Lalafel’s feigned surprise. They all know this is where they’ll find her at nearly any hour.

The second person to enter her view is Gaius van Baelsar. Just Baelsar, now, her thoughts correct themselves. No longer a Legatus, just a man who is, for the moment, on their side. She takes a drink as they look each other over, and then her eyes land on the masks he carries like trophies. Something inside her snaps at that. She puts the bottle down, but can’t pull her eyes off the red masks.

“Get out.”

Tataru hesitates, looking around for someone, anyone, who can help, even though the room is empty except for them. When no one moves, the Warrior picks up her gunblade and swings it to point at Baelsar, who immediately draws his own weapon.

“I said. Get. Out.”

Tataru seems to realize help isn’t coming, and her voice raises in distress.

“Right, yes. Gaius I’m sure we can find somewhere else to discuss this!”

Tataru pushes Gaius out of the room, and the image would be funny if she wasn't so angry. Tataru casts one final glance back at the Warrior, her face sad, and then the door closes. She sets the blade across the table with a heavy sigh.

The Warrior can’t finish the rest of the bottle fast enough. Memories flood in, unbidden, dragging her further into the abyss. Other masks, other lives she could not save. The guilt wracks her and she scrubs a hand through her hair. She should cry, if only to let something out, but no tears come. She pushes back from the table to put her head in her hands, elbows resting on her knees as the weight of her memories crushes in. She can’t even muster the strength to retrieve a new bottle. The tears never come.

No one else interrupts her for some time. Once, someone might have come, if only to scold her for upsetting Tataru. Maybe they don’t care about her anymore; she wouldn’t blame them.

She hears the door open again, tracks the sound of a man’s footsteps across the floor until they stop near enough to her table for her to see boots in her peripheral vision. She sits up, one hand closing around her weapon, but she can’t muster the strength to lift it.

“Was my threat earlier not clear enough?”

Gaius has removed his coat, and the offending masks. The corner of his mouth turns up in a half-smile, almost apologetic, and he raises an unopened bottle and a pair of cups. She stares at him blankly, but he seems undeterred. The silence drags on until she grows tired of his patient stare and waves at the empty seat that he appears determined to occupy. He sits and uncorks the bottle, pouring drinks for them both and sliding one across the table to her. He makes no mention of the gunblade still pointed vaguely in his direction.

They may not be friends, but she appreciates that Gaius isn't trying to drag a conversation out of her. He says nothing until they have both drained their cups, and refilled them.

"Do you plan to drink yourself to death, then?"

The bluntness of his question startles a laugh out of her. Every one of the Scions tiptoes around her drinking, as if it’s some great secret that the Warrior of Light spends her days at the bottom of a bottle.

“Unless Zenos kills me first, I expect I will.”

“In your state, he’s certain to.”

She makes a noncommittal noise and takes another drink. At this point, she thinks, it would be a mercy.

“I have seen more battlefields than you have years, champion. If you wish to talk, I will listen.”

“I’m not a hero,” she mumbles, almost under her breath, before knocking back the rest of her glass and reaching for the bottle again. Gaius grabs it first and she glares at him. “I’m not a hero. I’m a gods damned weapon.”

“As you say.” He nods, removing his hand from the bottle to let her take it. “Still, I can listen.”

Bottle in hand, she hesitates for a moment. He is the last person she would think to confide in, given their history, but he’s shown no hint of judgment or deceit. He’s also sat in her company much longer than anyone else has, of late. She pours another glass for herself and then pushes the bottle back to the middle of the table.

The warrior chews her lower lip as she considers how to begin. Emet-Selch is the obvious choice, because he changed everything, though she wonders if he could have shaken her resolve so deeply had it not been tenuous to begin with. Names and faces pull to the front of her mind. Minfilia, Haurchefant, Ysayle, Papalymo. So many others.

Lahabrea, who had once seemed like the embodiment of evil. Her perception changed with context.

Zenos. In the end, she had seen too much of herself in him. Monstrous though he may have been, she had tried to save him. His death cut to her core, even now knowing that he still lived and would hunt her down.

Ardbert and Emet-Selch, who she had lost in the same agonizing moment.

Even Elidibus. She had hoped so desperately to sway him from his course, the one that would put him against her, because she knew she would kill him as well.

She could go further back. When the Imperials were nameless, faceless villains. The adventurers fallen alongside her, the scores of people she had struck down in the name of the Scions’ mission.

It was all for nothing. The lives they saved didn’t outweigh the lives they took. Primals, the Empire, Ascians, the Warriors of Light and Darkness, Hydaelyn, Zodiark. All meaningless in the end.

“War... weighs heavily on all those it touches. Most heavily on those who serve on its front lines.” Gaius rests his forearms on the table as he looks down into his own cup. “It is not a burden you should bear alone.”

She knows he speaks from experience, but the anger in her lashes out. “How many of them have you killed, Gaius?” She scoffs. “There is no good and evil. Just beings desperate to save their own worlds, killing each other for false gods.”

His stare hardens, body tensing as his own anger rises to meet hers. “A fair sight fewer than you slaughtered at Meridianum, I would guess.” The words hit her like a slap to the face and she slumps back in her chair. That was his post, his men. She carries the guilt of her actions there, but had not previously considered the terrible weight he must feel every time he looks at her.

“I am sorry, this was not my intention.”

She shakes her head at his apology, but finds she cannot meet his steady gaze. “I... I cannot atone for my actions. Too much damage has been done.”

“I am not offering forgiveness,” he gives her a sad smile, “nor do I believe you would accept it if I were. I’m just an old legatus sharing a drink with a young soldier.”

They sit in silence as they finish another round.

When Gaius speaks again, his voice is quiet but firm. “Your friends would share your pain. Let them. Do not suffer alone. The world demands much from you, but it needs the hope that you bring. The people cannot fight without it.”

The warrior fidgets with her cup, still unable to look at the man across from her. The man who has, for reasons she cannot understand, chosen to be kind to her. Her heart aches for those she has lost, those she has failed to protect, those she could not save even from themselves. Her soul is weary. But he's reminded her that the embers of hope still smolder somewhere deep within her, if she can only reach them to stoke the fire back to life.

“Thank you, Gaius.”

Gauis stands from the table with a nod. Although she has said little, the conversation has been a comfort that she has gone too long without.

“There are rumors of some new threat approaching Gyr Abania. We could likely use your skill... if you can crawl out of that bottle long enough.” She snorts a laugh in response, but for the first time in a long time, she is considering it. Gaius shrugs. “We’ll wait for you in Ala Mhigo, if we can. I’ll leave word if not.”

She nods once, the closest she can manage to any sort of response.

“Good night, Warrior. I hope to see you again.” He leaves the room without another word or glance.

The warrior stares at the empty cup in her hands, the bottle still half full and within reach, then she slams it upside down on the table with a thunk.

“For those we can yet save.”

She breathes a shaky breath and puts her head in her hands, and the Warrior of Light weeps.

**Author's Note:**

> Lyrics from "Drown" by Bring Me The Horizon.
> 
> Thanks for reading :)
> 
> Join me and people who write a whole lot better than me at [Emet-Selch's Wholesomely Debauched and Enabling Book Club](%E2%80%9C)


End file.
